The Devil Walked In
by sapphirerosha110
Summary: The Devil walked in wearing dress blues and a solemn smile.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate Atlantis, this story is inspired by the "The First Sentences" challenge in BiteMeTechie's "When Plot Bunnies Attack" forum.**

**Line 094: The devil walked in…**

**A/N: Yes, I saw "Sunday", but for the sake of this story, I'm going to ignore it.**

The devil walked in, wearing dress blues and a solemn smile.

We were at the memorial service, back on Earth. We were around ordinary service members that _he_ had known. He shook their hands and made small talk that brushed against classified subjects but never touched them. It was a contest of "My secret is bigger than yours."

Or course he had the bigger secret. We all had the secret of Atlantis, but his was the biggest secret of all and only I knew.

SGA-1 came back through the gate with Wraith hot on their tail, missing a member. Teyla said that he went down from a stunner blast and was fed on by the Wraith; there was nothing they could do for him and there was no time to go back and recover remains. Elizabeth accepted his explanation, but pulled me aside after the debriefing

"Carson, I want you to go through and make sure that's what happened."

"Elizabeth, don't you trust Teyla?"

"I trust Teyla, I didn't trust how she kept looking for confirmation that the lie she was telling was the right one." Elizabeth's eyes flickered with something I couldn't identify.

"All right." We were walking as we spoke and we were now at the Command Center.

"Of course I'll go check the vaccinations of the kids on M7G-677 for you Elizabeth." I said at medium volume as we reached Stargate Control.

"Thank you, Carson." Elizabeth said and I went and grabbed my medical kit from the infirmary. When I got back up to Stargate Control, Elizabeth dialed, blocking the DHD from view with her body, but no one noticed. She gave me a curt nod and I walked through the Stargate, not really expecting to find burning wreckage or forest impacted with gunfire. I didn't.

The sight that met my eyes was that of an abandoned field in the middle of nowhere with a rough path leading through it. There was absolutely no evidence of a Wraith attack, or a firefight. As I walked along the path, I didn't find the withered husk of a victim of a feeding. I found a body, a fresh body that had a single gunshot to the head.

After an impromptu autopsy, I found the bullet from a 9mm lodged in his brain. I took the bloody bullet and put it in a small plastic zip lock bag which I then hid in my pocket. I pulled the dog tags from around his neck and put those in my pocket too.

So cliché, I thought. Bringing back the dog tags, but it was all I could do. I wondered if there was anything else I could bring back, any personal item or something that had token significance. Somewhat reluctantly, I began to search his pockets.

There were a few power bar wrappers, a keychain that had a picture of Einstein giving the thumbs-up sign, and a piece of paper with the planet's address scribbled on it.

I packed up my things and walked back to the DHD; I dialed Atlantis and put in my identification code. I waited for the radio confirmation that the shield had been lowered and then I stepped through.

"How did it go, Carson?" Elizabeth asked as soon as I got back.

"It was fine; they're all up to date on their vaccinations, so I didn't have to do much."

Elizabeth motioned that I should follow her inconspicuously. Five seconds after she walked through the door, I followed her. When we were out of earshot, she turned around

"So?" She asked eagerly, wanting closure in some form.

"Well, Teyla wasn't lying. I found one body, wearing an Atlantis uniform. It had been fed upon, but I recovered these." I took the dog tags out of my pocket and placed them in her hand. With a sigh, she closed her fingers around the oblong pieces of metal.

"Thank you Carson."

That was three weeks ago. Now I'm standing across the room watching Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard greet people at Rodney McKay's memorial service, pretending that he isn't a monster hiding behind the military officer façade.

The devil walked in wearing dress blues and a solemn smile with eyes that betrayed a fiendish satisfaction.


End file.
